


This Charade is Never Going to Last

by caimani



Category: The Academy Is...
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Shopping Malls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 01:23:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13020306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caimani/pseuds/caimani
Summary: Mike works as an elf at the Meet Santa center at a mall. One day, he ends up talking with Bill, a dad waiting with his kid in the line.





	This Charade is Never Going to Last

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eddycocaine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eddycocaine/gifts).



> Merry Christmas Lauren :] here's your gift. It's ridiculous but I think it's cute.

The costume has bells on it. Every time Mike moves so much as an inch, he rings like a fucking jingle bell on that stupid one horse open sleigh. Stupid Christmas music. Stupid bells. The rest of the costume would actually be bearable if it wasn’t for the goddamn noise it makes. 

Although the rest of it is pretty bad too. Green tunic with the bells sewn onto it, striped red and white sleeves, red shorts, striped red and white socks, and stupid green slippers with even more bells sewn onto the tips. And of course the green and red hat with the giant bell hanging off the end, which Mike takes great care to keep at the back of his head lest it ring incessantly in his ears. 

At least he doesn’t really have to do much. His job involves watching the line of parents and their kids waiting to get their pictures with the mall Santa. Mike and his small army of bells are the only things keeping dozens of kids from swarming the display. 

The task of dealing with the parents who always want to take pictures with their goddamn phones is someone else’s job. The task of taking the pictures is someone else’s job. The task of dealing with the impatient parents as the pictures print is also thankfully someone else’s job. 

Today is a Saturday, and unfortunately, the lunch break just ended. Santa--actually a cool guy named Benji who has a million tattoos that the costume somehow hides--is back on his big fancy chair. He’s got a pretty sweet routine that he takes the more cooperative kids though. Mike likes it, but he’s also heard it hundreds of times every day he’s been working here.

Right now, Mike is eyeing the line with barely concealed distaste. There have got to be about two dozen parents waiting, and most of them have more than one kid. Most of the kids are talking in excessively loud voices to their parents, and meanwhile the parents keep commenting loudly about how slow the line is moving. Some of them are looking at Mike as they say so, as if he can do anything about it.

“You look festive,” someone says. Mike would ignore the comment, but the person who said it is a young looking dad carrying a little girl on his hip. He has a sly smirk on his face, like he thinks he’s the hottest shit. 

Mike responds in the most emotionless tone possible. “No, this is literally how I look every day of the year. I’m actually a real elf.”

“No, aren’t elves supposed to be jolly?” the dickhead dad says. “Right, Jenny?”

The girl giggles and buries her face in her dad’s shoulder.

Channeling all of his inner exhaustion, Mike smiles at the dad. The dad looks horrified at first, and then laughs. 

“Wow, that is truly amazing. Sorry about that.”

Mike shrugs, the bells on his costume jingling. It’s not the most annoying thing he’s dealt with while doing this job. “I’m the elf that doesn’t get to be in Santa’s Winter Wonderland,” he says, gesturing at the display. 

The dad chuckles. “So once you’re back in there, you turn jolly again?”

“I don’t know,” Mike says. “The damage might have already been done. I might never be jolly again.”

“Oh no!” the dad exclaims.

“Oh no!” his daughter choruses, wiggling around in his arms. 

Mike has to turn away from the two for a moment to let the next group into the display. It’s a cute group: four well-behaved kids in matching outfits and a very patient mother who thanks Mike as he lets them in. Mike watches the kids head excitedly over to Santa, and then returns his attention to the line. More specifically, to the young dad and daughter who are now one away from meeting Santa.

“My name’s Bill,” the dad says. 

“I’m Mike,” Mike says. 

“Uh,” Bill adjusts his hold on his daughter. “I hope I didn’t, y’know, annoy you too bad. I’m just… I don’t know--”

“It’s fine, I don’t really care,” Mike says. Really, this is kind of pleasant conversation, considering most of what he does is say “Okay, time to meet Santa” and listen to pissed-off parents complain about the wait as the life slowly leaves his body. Joking about how dead he looks? Yeah, sure, whatever. 

“I don’t mean to be an as--a jerk or anything,” Bill continues.

“You’re not,” Mike says. “Yeah, the costume is kind of… not my thing, but it could be worse.” He could have his face painted like all the girls who work here. Or he could have to act all cheery to catch the kids’ attention like Jon, the photographer. 

“Your thing?” Bill repeats. “What, you dress up like other things?”

Mike smirks. “During Halloween, I usually work as an evil clown at a haunted house.”

Bill looks intrigued. “Wow, that’s like the complete opposite of a Christmas elf, huh?”

“Yeah,” Mike says. 

“So what about the rest of the year?” Bill says. “Like Valentine’s Day?”

“I dress up as a giant teddy bear with a heart,” Mike deadpans.

“Really?” Bill says excitedly.

“No.”

Bill bursts out laughing and Mike can’t help but smile too. Bill’s daughter pokes at Bill’s face.

“I have this mental image of you like that now,” Bill says, trying to move his head away from his daughter’s fingers. Instead, she grabs his face with both of her hands and pulls on his cheeks so he’s still smiling. “Big teddy bear of love.”

Mike tries to imagine that and fails. 

It’s time to get back to doing his job for a moment, so he lets the next group--two parents and a very young baby in a baby-sized Santa costume--into the display. Next is Bill, and Mike actually thinks he might miss talking to him. Yeah, he’s kind of annoying, but he’s kind of funny too.

“Oh, this mall does Easter pictures too!” Bill suddenly says. “Do you do that too?”

“Yeah, but they don’t make us dress up like anything for Easter,” Mike says. Last Easter was pretty fun; Ryland from Mike’s acting company was the Easter bunny and did a pretty hilarious British accent the whole time. Mike cracked up the first time he heard it.

“That’s a shame,” Bill says. “I can’t really imagine you in anything but a costume, though.”

“Well, I told you, I am a real elf,” Mike says. “When the mall closes, I go back to the North Pole with Santa and the other elves.”

“Do you really?” Bill’s daughter says, looking at him with something between curiosity and skepticism. “That’s so far away!”

“Well, when I’m really tired, I just stay here overnight,” Mike says.

“When do you have supper?” Bill’s daughter says. 

“I eat candy canes and--” Shit, Mike almost said ‘bad children who don’t leave the mall’. Best not to make that joke, even if it might make Bill laugh at it. Mike thinks fast and comes up with, “snow.”

“You need vegetables,” Bill’s daughter says in a serious tone that makes Mike think she’s heard that phrase repeatedly from her dad.

Mike looks at Bill, who seems delighted by Mike playing around with his little girl.

“Yeah, okay, I’ll make sure to get some vegetables,” Mike says.

“That’s how you grow big and strong,” Bill says with a grin.

Mike thinks he could spend all afternoon making this kind of small talk with Bill and his daughter. Unfortunately, the parents are done getting pictures of Santa holding their baby, so it’s Bill’s turn. Mike lets him in and Bill pauses as he enters.

“Thanks, for… y’know, the talk,” he says, lowering his daughter to the ground.

“Yeah,” Mike waves at him. “Have fun. Happy holidays.” 

Bill smiles and follows his daughter into the display.

At that very moment, Shana, the girl from the printing station, walks around the display to Mike. She’s got an apologetic look on her face and she’s sort of hunched over, like she’s trying to make herself smaller.

“I’m really sorry about this,” she says. “But could you please take over for me at the printing station. Just for like ten minutes, I promise.”

“Why?” Mike says. He glances quickly at the line, where a couple of parents are fussing with their kids, and then back to Shana.

She leans close enough to whisper, “There’s a guy hanging around who keeps hitting on me. It’s… I don’t know what to do. I thought he’d stop if I just ignored him, but--” Shana sighs. “I just need to… y’know, switch to a different spot. Are you okay with doing that?”

“Yeah, I’ll take care of it.” Mike says. 

Shana looks relieved. “Thank you so much! You know how to use the printer, right?”

Mike nods. “Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll come back when he’s gone.”

Shana bounces a little on her toes, ringing every bell on her costume. “Thank you Mike, I owe you--”

“No, don’t worry about it,” Mike says. He leaves Shana at the entrance and carefully moves around the gated winter wonderland display to the printing station table. Ashley is talking with the parents of the baby about photo options. Mike sits down at the computer that’s hooked up to the printer. 

Sure enough, there’s a guy just hanging around, a few feet behind the couple with the baby. He’s got to be at least thirty years older than Shana. What a fucking scumbag. Mike eyes the guy, staring as intensely as possible. He’s good at that, he knows.

The guy starts to look uncomfortable. 

“You waiting on a picture?” Mike asks flatly. He knows damn well the piece of shit isn’t waiting on a picture.

“No, I was wondering if Shana was coming back,” he says.

“Nope,” Mike says. He turns to Ashley. “What package are they getting?”

The baby’s parents are getting one of the biggest packages, and as Mike prints the pictures, he can see why. They’re pretty good. The baby in its little Santa costume was looking straight at the camera with a cute look on its face. Mike might not like babies all that much, but it looks really nice in the photo.

By the time the pictures have all printed and the couple is gone, the creep is also gone. 

Then Bill and his daughter’s pictures show up on the computer. A moment later, they’re walking out of the display. Bill looks surprised to see Mike. 

“You work here too?” Bill says. “Or do all the guy elves look just like you?”

“You got it with the second guess,” Mike says. “The North Pole’s on a low budget; we spent all our money on fake snow and Santa’s dry-cleaning.”

Bill laughs at that. He orders his photos, hands his money over to Ashley, and Mike starts printing the pictures. Both Bill and his daughter are in the picture, Bill standing to the side of the big chair while his daughter is sitting on Santa’s knee. It’s nice. Not like the admittedly cute baby with Santa, but… it’s like a nice family picture. Or something.

Bill coos over how good the photo looks as the first one comes out. Mike slides it into a plastic sleeve.

“Look at that,” Bill says, picking up his daughter and pointing at the picture. “You’re smiling so nice.”

“You too, daddy!” his daughter says.

Mike tears his eyes away from the image of Bill smiling and tries to focus on the task of printing the pictures. It’s not working as well as he wants. But thankfully it doesn’t take too long to print out all the pictures, and soon Mike’s handing the sleeve full of Santa pictures over to Bill.

“Thanks, Mike,” Bill says. “Happy holidays. Again, I guess.”

“Yeah, you too,” Mike says. He watches Bill and his daughter go, and then puts his attention back into the job he’s doing. Ten minutes go by quickly, and he heads back to his spot at the entrance to the display. Shana returns to her spot, and the rest of the day crawls by. There’s no more chatty young dads to break up the tedium.

The next day, Mike isn’t working. He sleeps in, wakes up late, and debates whether to order an early lunch or go out for a late breakfast. Rather than do either, he hangs around his apartment longer, snacking on to-go breakfast foods, and avoiding cleaning up.

Early in the afternoon, Mike heads out to the store to pick up some groceries and hopefully get himself into the right mindset to get things done around the apartment. It starts out good. He’s got about half his grocery list in his shopping cart when suddenly--

Mike freezes and does a double take. He’s not seeing things. There, about halfway down the aisle, is Bill and his daughter.

He should just go into another aisle and hope they don’t run into each other while they’re here. And only come here during the dead of night from now on, maybe. But that’s not what he does.

Mike says, in a clear and loud tone, “Bill?”

Bill turns at the sound of his name. He catches sight of Mike and for a moment, there’s no hint of recognition. Then his mouth falls open in surprise. 

“Mike? Is that… wow is that you?” he laughs. Mike doesn’t move, still frozen in disbelief. Bill starts walking towards him, his daughter bouncing alongside him. 

“Yeah, it’s me,” Mike says lamely.

Bill stops a few feet away from him. He laughs again. 

“You really look different in normal clothes,” Bill says with a cheery smile. “I’m like… half waiting to hear bells ringing.”

Mike groans. He fucking hates those bells.


End file.
